A Notorious Countess Confesses: Pennyroyal Green Series

by Julie Anne Long

  She looked about curiously. Her eyes settled on the portrait over the mantel.

  “I haven’t the faintest idea who that is,” Evie admitted. “I was considering giving him a name.”

  Miss Pitney smiled at that. But she was tense, and the corners of her mouth couldn’t seem to reach very high.

  “I was very impressed with your work with the O’Flaherty children, Lady Balmain,” she began coolly. She sounded as though she were interviewing a governess.

  Evie slowly hiked a brow.

  And said nothing. Deciding Miss Pitney could benefit from a little humbling. And she’d recently learned the effectiveness of a little strategic silence from a man who used it like a weapon.

  Miss Pitney had the grace to flush.

  “You see, I’ve a reason for calling today. You did say to Mrs. Sneath that you had some experience getting what you want, and that you’d be delighted to share what you know about men.”

  “I certainly did say that.”

  She inhaled. Clearly she was tormented by what she was about to say next. She exhaled.

  “I’m not pretty,” she said matter-of-factly, on a rush. She raised her chain arrogantly. “Not like some people who shall remain nameless. I have long since come to terms with the fact that I must rely on my wit and intelligence—unlike other featherheads, who shall remain nameless—and my fortune for suitors. I think perhaps I might appreciate them more as a result. Unlike others, who shall remain nameless, who have been careless with the affections of others.”

  Her voice escalated toward the end of the sentence. She clapped her mouth shut and flushed, surprised by her own outburst.

  So Miss Pitney was a girl of hidden passions.

  She wondered if Simon Covington, the young man rendered speechless by Miss Josephine Charing, was the subject of them. Or whether she was about to be subjected to more conversation about the vicar’s appeal.

  “I’ve a suitor who seems very sincere in his affections. But he’s handsome, you see. Very handsome. And I should like to—”

  “Miss Pitney, may I make a suggestion?”

  She hiked that obstinate chin, peeved at the interruption. “If you must.”

  “Some of the most famous courtesans have been, shall we say, not traditionally attractive. Charm is an essence, not a façade.”

  Miss Pitney went motionless. Then mouthed, “Charm is an essence, not façade,” to herself, fascinated.

  “Believe in your own appeal, and it will radiate. Men will be as moths to flames.”

  This might have been a bit of an exaggeration.

  But Miss Pitney took this in for a good while. And her face radiated hope, and she was lovely in that moment, the way that hope can make one lovely.

  “Even the … vicar?”

  She’d evidently decided to aim high with her new knowledge.

  She rushed on. “He is a clever man, and I feel certain he can see beneath surfaces. I always like to have a topic ready to discuss, you see, when it comes to men. He comes to our house for dinner at least once a month—my father is the doctor here in town, Lady Wareham—and we’ve chatted about botany. A lovely chat, for there’s just a small parcel of land behind the vicarage, part of the living, he’s working, and … well, then he gave the sermon about loving thy neighbor, the other morning, and his voice is so very confiding. And I felt as though …” She stopped and gave a rueful smile. “Then again, I’m certain every woman in the church thought he was speaking directly to them.”

  Thus demonstrating that she was indeed clever.

  “An optimistic interpretation of the sermon, perhaps, on the part of the women of Pennyroyal Green,” Eve suggested diplomatically. “It’s lovely to hear a man speak kindly, when husbands tend to take their wives for granted.”

  “When one is overlooked with great consistency, one becomes observant, Lady Wareham, and I suppose I am. Perhaps you didn’t make that mistake about the sermon as you’ve known so … many men … and he might not seem exceptional to you.”

  She paused, perhaps hoping to be treated to a discussion of the many men.

  Eve hadn’t made that mistake about the vicar because she’d been sleeping. But Miss Pitney again had a point. “Since my husband the earl died, I find I don’t think very much about men one way or the other,” she decided to say. With a wistful smile.

  She could have sworn Amy Pitney stifled a sigh of relief. Eve was certain Miss Pitney would ensure every woman in Pennyroyal Green heard about it by telling, for instance, Mrs. Sneath.

  “Your suitor, Miss Pitney … do you care for him?”

  Amy fidgeted in thought, her nails tapping, chink chink chink, against the side of her teacup. “I do,” she said softly, almost wonderingly, with a little laugh. “At least I think I do. He’s very charming and persuasive … he has such lovely manners. I hardly dare hope he genuinely finds me appealing. It’s nothing he says or does in particular, mind you, that makes me uncertain, just something I fear. I ought to be grateful for the attentions, but … shouldn’t one wish to marry for love?”

  Eve knew more than a little something about being desired for something other than her engaging personality.

  “How do you know when a man is sincere, Lady Wareham? I’d hoped you’d be able to meet him and tell me what you think of him. I’ve been disappointed before, you see …”

  How did one know if a man was sincere? This was an excellent question. Eve mulled it in silence, allowed images to drift into her mind. One answer was, “when they win you in a card game and marry you, to the shock of everyone.” Myriad men had sincerely wanted to get her into bed; myriad men had sincerely wanted her simply because other men did. But the truest answer, she realized was: when he plays no games at all. When he doesn’t know how to flirt, and merely says what he’s thinking, and doesn’t judge. When flattery makes him squirm, and epithets make him laugh, and you want to tell him things, and he’s too busy building fences and comforting people and the like to treat romance as a toy.

  Then you know a man is altogether sincere.

  “Sincere men are very rare, indeed,” she said softly. “If I’m fortunate enough to be invited to the Assembly, I will of a certainty tell you what I think of him, Miss Pitney. But please do believe in your own appeal.”

  “Thank you, Lady Wareham.”

  This girl, thought Eve, might very well become a genuine friend.

  Eve walked Miss Pitney to the door, then walked with her as far as the arbor to wave her off.

  She watched her go.

  And then paused and inhaled deeply and sighed contentedly, not at all dissatisfied with the morning as it had progressed so far. She tipped her head back. Enormous clouds tented her overhead, and the sun pushed its way through them, turning them a luxurious nacre color. A long spade leaned against a bench, left by the gardener, who was no doubt filling in vole holes or whatever it was gardeners did. Perhaps I’ll become one of those women who become passionate about roses, she mulled. Since I clearly will never become passionate about embroidery.

  She thrust her arms up in a stretch and was about to turn for the house when a rustling sound froze her. She turned cautiously.

  All at once, one of her shrubberies began shaking violently.

  She scrambled, stumbling, backward with a stifled shriek. And then froze in helpless horror, hand to her throat, as it swayed to and fro, very much as though it was attempting to tear up its roots and charge at her.

  She lunged for the spade and swung it up over her shoulder, poised to beat the devil out of it.

  The shrubbery gave one final heave and out popped the vicar.

  He brushed himself off nonchalantly.

  The spade slipped out her hands and clattered to the ground. “The devil …”

  She glared at him. Her entire body vibrated with her thudding heart.

  “No, not the devil,” he said mildly. “Are you disappointed?” He grinned at her. “I am. You didn’t shriek at me in Irish. Or say ‘bloody.’ ”


  She was sorely tempted to say it now. The bloody man ought to have looked ridiculous emerging from a shrubbery. He contrived instead to look like a satyr, a forest God, tiny green leaves in his gold hair and scattered over his coat.

  “Perhaps I’m getting accustomed to you leaping out of nowhere. I feel, however, I should ask why you were lurking in my shrubbery.”

  “I wasn’t lurking. I dropped something, and it rolled in, and I had to go in to fetch it.”

  “Are you certain it wasn’t just because you saw Miss Amy Pitney departing my house and decided to plunge in before she saw you?”

  “It was serendipity, I’m sure, that I dropped something which rolled into your shrubbery just as Miss Amy Pitney was departing.”

  “God was on your side.”

  He offered her a crooked smile here. “Ah, but I have proof.” He held out a jar. “It’s plum jam. The women of Pennyroyal Green are generous with their … what did you call it at the auction? ‘All that’s best of womanhood, all that our great country is.’ My larder overfloweth.”

  Evie took it graciously. “So delighted you can foist one of them off on me.”

  He laughed, and it was just what the day needed, that laugh, to make it completely beautiful. Her heart squeezed helplessly, and she went silent, blank and abashed.

  She’s a clever girl,” she said carefully, after a moment. “Amy.”

  “She is,” he agreed neutrally.

  “She likes you,” she added slyly. Irrationally, she wanted to watch his face when she said it.

  He sighed at length. “She does try much harder than she needs to. She doesn’t need botany to fascinate. She’s a lovely person in her own right.”

  “I’m beginning to suspect as much.” She detected no yearning in his face and was ridiculously relieved.

  “I have, in fact, had two callers today. And I’ve you to thank for it.” She presented this with a certain triumph.

  He paused. “I’m pleased to hear it.” The softness in his voice threatened to make her blush. His face reflected her own pleasure.

  “In fact, it may not surprise you to know, Reverend Sylvaine, that the young women of Pennyroyal Green have been coming to me for advice on men.”

  He froze in the brushing of leaves from his coat.

  “Have they now?” he said slowly, with great trepidation.

  “I’m not at liberty to tell you who the other one was, and you hid in the shrubbery from one of them. I’ve told each of them that they merely need to be themselves to be admired. It’s the most versatile advice I’ve ever received.

  “And possibly the most dangerous I’ve ever given.”

  She smiled.

  “I’m here because I’ve brought something else for you.” He reached into his coat pocket and fished out a book. She heretically hoped it wasn’t a Bible.

  “Greek Myths,” she read when he handed it to her.” What a pity. I thought it might be conversational French.”

  She tested the results of this little statement with a flick up through her eyelashes.

  He just shook his head slightly, with a slight smile. “I thought you might be particularly interested in the trials of Hercules.”

  She studied his face and found it inscrutable. Her heart sank just a very little. “Why do I have the suspicion that you’re trying to tell me something, Vicar?”

  “Nothing much eludes you, Lady Balmain. Mrs. Sneath confides that while you just may have purged your wicked impulses through hard labor and sacrifice—”

  “Are you disappointed?”

  “—but I’ve just come from a meeting with her regarding the Winter Ball. And I’m informed that the ladies have another project in mind for you. This afternoon, in fact. If you’re available.”

  “Before I’m construed as ‘acceptable.’ ” She tried to disguise the faintest little hint of aspersion in her voice.

  “I’ve no doubt you’ll make it look like child’s play.”

  “Do you know what it is?”

  “I do. I’d call it … the Nemean lion. If we’re comparing this Herculean labors, that is. The Nemean lion posed as a beautiful woman to lure warriors into a cave, whereupon she turned into a lion, devoured them, then gave their bones to Hades.”

  There was a silence.

  “How very thoughtful of the lion to share her spoils with Hades,” Eve said faintly.

  “She likes me,” Adam had added mildly. “Lady Fennimore does.”

  This was the name of the lion, apparently.

  His eyes glinted wickedly. And then his hand went up to brush a few more little leaves clinging to his hair, and she saw a flash of brilliant red.

  Her heart stuttered.

  Blood. Trailing into the cuff of his shirt.

  “Rev … are you aware that you’re bleeding?”

  His face blanked. He pulled his hand away from his forehead and stared at it, surprised. “I suppose the hawthorn fought back when—”

  She was next to him an instant. “Show me,” she demanded.

  Surprised, he obeyed immediately, pushing up the sleeve of his coat, unfastening the cuffs of his shirt, peeling it back a little. “It’s my arm. I scratched it through my shirt, I suppose.”

  “Excellent. Then we won’t need to amputate.” She flashed a smile up at him. “Hold it up just so, try not to do any more bleeding on your shirt, for I doubt you’ve a dozen spare ones, and come with me.”

  She turned and had no doubts he would follow, for when she used that voice, people obeyed, even the vicar.

  And he did. Silently.

  She led him past a small garden patch planted with winter vegetables and through a kitchen door.

  The kitchen was empty, but the ghost of Mrs. Wilberforce’s scones hovered in the air. Cloud-filtered sunlight pushed through the window, muting and blending the colors of the cupboards, the great stove, the table and chairs, into shades of mauve and gray and pearl and charcoal. It was as though they’d entered one of the clouds outside.

  “You’ll need to take off your coat,” she ordered softly.

  He hesitated. And then never took his eyes from her as he slowly shook out of his caped greatcoat, and folded it over a chair. And then he shrugged out of his coat.

  It seemed absurdly intimate, standing in the homely kitchen, watching the vicar divest himself of his clothes. And she stared at him, flustered as a girl for a moment.

  She swiftly turned her back and rifled through a row of labeled tins on the shelf and found the one called St. John’s wort.

  She brought a basin of water with her to the table.

  Without a word, he settled his long body into a sturdy wooden chair pushed up against the old oak-board table.

  “Let’s have the sleeve of your shirt rolled up, shall we?”

  She settled in across from him with a basin of water.

  He rolled up the sleeve, unveiling his arm a little at a time, and she waited, as breathless as if this were the unveiling of a public monument. And she was held still. Why hadn’t she been prepared for how it would feel to be this close to his bare skin? Because he was so guarded, his arm, bare and vulnerable, seemed unduly significant. It was toasted a pale gold by the sun; he would never brown. The broad, strong wrists, the long elegant fingers, callused palms of a man who labored, the pale blue road of veins in which flowed that stubborn blood of his, the crisp gold hair—it all seemed unduly fascinating.

  In large part because she could instantly imagine him unveiling the rest of his body.

  At least he revealed a gash across the pale underside of his arm.

  She cleared her throat.

  “Have you a handkerchief? Or do you give them away to parishioners, the way you do cravats?”

  “I haven’t a handkerchief.” His voice was subdued, too, amused.

  And like a magician, she slowly drew slipped the fichu from out of her bodice and dipped it into the water.

  This silenced him.

  And as she leaned forward, she knew his vie
w was into her cleavage.

  “Your cravat sacrifice was an inspiration,” she told him. Casting a glance up at him through her lashes.

  He said nothing. His senses had likely been clubbed senseless by an eyeful of bosom.

  Gently she cleaned the blood from his scratch, while he submitted, humble as a boy.

  “ ’Tis a mere flesh wound,” she told him. “No stitches necessary.”

  Knowing this formidable man, even her own admittedly fine bosom wouldn’t conquer his faculties. He’d find a way to rally his senses soon enough. And yet his pulse gratifying thudded beneath the surface of his untenably silky skin covering the shockingly hard muscle of his arm. There seemed no give in that muscle. So like the man, those contrasts. She felt a wayward surge of protectiveness. Of gratitude, that she could do this much for him.

  “You’ve done this before, have you?” His voice was a little frayed. Faintly amused.

  “Oh, countless times, Reverend.”

  “For you … needed to mind your siblings.”

  “Yes.”

  A hesitation. “Was it difficult, minding them all on your own, without your parents?”

  She paused her fichu on his arm. She knew at once this wasn’t an interrogation, but there was a thrum of urgency in it.

  He wanted to know her. And that little sunburst of joyous fear pierced her breathless.

  “I suppose I didn’t view it as difficult or easy or … it was simply my life, and I did what needed to be done. They’re all I have, my family. And I would lay down my life for them.”

  He simply nodded.

  She knew he was watching her. She kept her eyes on his arm, but she felt warmth over the back of her neck, her arms.

  She looked up at him. “Mary O’Flaherty told me about her baby, Reverend Sylvaine. The one who died. She was very grateful to you.”

  His face went abruptly closed. “Ah, well.”

  It was the thing he said when he was moved, she realized. When he didn’t want to accept thanks for an immeasurable kindness. What he’d said to her when he’d bought the ginger cake.

  Perhaps all in a day’s work, for him.